Le Mans 2013 Thursday qualifying

Who remembers Jim Downing racing with the first incarnation of the HANS device when he brought his Mazda-engined Kudzu DLM to Le Mans back in 1996?

The co-creator of the head restraint device has donated the HANS Model I - or the Darth Vader - to the American Museum of Speed in Nebraska.

The fastest GTE lap so far was an effort somewhere in the 4m24s from Frederic Makowiecki, who has since handed the #97 car over to Darren Turner.

That's some 30 seconds slower than the car's best from yesterday, a sign of an improvement in track conditions from just 20 minutes ago.

The LMP1 and P2 cars have still completed only a handful of laps each, although Alex Wurz has ventured out on track in his #7 Toyota TS030 HYBRID.

And speaking of Nissan, AUTOSPORT had a quick chinwag with its global motorsport director Darren Cox, who revealed that the DeltaWing, which was supported by Nissan at Le Mans last year, appears (in the dramatic black livery, of course) in the Prologue version of Gran Turismo 6.

According to Cox, game developer Polyphony Digital had to redo its vehicle dynamics system to accomodate the car, but was desperate to. This is not, apparrently, breaking news. It is the first time we've heard it though.

Driver Lucas Ordonez, who was the first winner of the GT Academy, with which Nissan is so heavily involved, has been helping Polyphony with development of the full game, which is yet to be released.

Among those to suffer yesterday was the LMP2 #42 Greaves Motorsport Zytek Nissan.

Drivers Michael Krumm and Lucas Ordonez told AUTOSPORT earlier that gearbox issues and and a lack of general straighline speed had compromised their session.

That lap of Westbrook's was 57 seconds off the car's dry best from yesterday. Taking the spin into account we can deduce that a 45-or-so second loss for the conditions make any improvements in the next hour pretty unlikely.

There is still a lot of reason to get some laps in; particularly for the cars that were thwarted by accidents and mechanical problems yesterday.

Richard Westbrook takes a spin at the first Mulsanne chicane in the #74 Corvette. A quick 360 and he gets going again.

The Krohn Ferrari - shunted by team boss Tracy Krohn last night, causing signficant damage - is not leaving the pits just yet. Work continues to get the replacement chassis ready for action.

Darren Turner said Aston's forecast was for more rain tonight, and so "any extra dry running would be a bonus". Well, after that 10-minute downpour, the track's very much wet - though it's stopped raining, so the teams will hope it dries as quickly as yesterday.

Toyota confirmed earlier that it was a driveline failure that caused Sebastien Buemi to stop. All is fixed and fine now.

This year, the Legends race caters for cars from 1949 up to 1965. They include Jamie O'Leary's favourite, the 1965 Sylvain Stepak/Francois Bourdon Renault Alpine A210/M65 (yes, the picture is clearly not from today, but you get the idea).

There are 12 classes in total, catering for a range of machines - that particular example being entered in to the LML5 class - for '63-'65 cars under 2001cc.

Just when it looked like we were getting some internet stability, it starts playing up again.

Anyway, earlier today the ACO revealed how they are honouring a pair of Le Mans legends - four-time winner Henri Pescarolo (pictured) will be behind the wheel of the course car while Jacky Ickx, six times a Le Mans victor, will wave the chequered flag.

Remember to check out the AUTOSPORT Le Mans Gallery too, with all the best images from the event so far.

We will be constantly adding to it as the Le Mans 24 Hours weekend progresses. Currently there's a range of Krohn crash shots and the special one-off livery being carried by the #97 Aston Martin for your viewing pleasure.

Le Mans 2013 Gallery

Good news too from Greaves Motorsport. The #41 Zytek-Nissan crashed by Eric Lux in practice yesterdy will be ready to take part in second qualifying after the car was stripped back to reveal a fully-intact tub.

The Krohn team is hard at work rebuilding its GTE Am class Ferrari around a new chassis.

Another car was sourced even before the 458 team boss Tracy Krohn crashed last night had made it back to the pits.

The car arrived at the track around lunchtime; the team hopeful of being out at some point during qualifying tonight.

We've had a bit of on-track action already this afternoon with practice for the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli, which is supporting the 24 Hours.

Fastest was Daniel Mancinelli, a former Italian Formula Renault champion. Philipp Baron (remember him from the F3 Euro Series a decade ago?) and Stefano Gai rounded out the top three.

Given the range of abilities in this series, a 37-second gap between fastest and 43rd doesn't seem so shabby.

We've had some pretty severe internet problems in the press room for the last half hour. Rather than assuring you (and ourselves) that it's fixed, we're just going to hope that it holds out.

Today's timetable looks like this:

Qualifying 2: 1900-2100 CET (1800-2000 UK)
Qualifying 3: 2200-0000 CET (2100-2300 UK)

In the mean time, you can catch up with what happened in yesterday's opening qualifying session - including Loic Duval's pace-setting time right here.

Hello and welcome to AUTOSPORT's live coverage from the Le Mans 24 Hours.

We've got a couple of hours before the first track action of the day; second qualifying, but we'll bring you all the latest news and reaction from the circuit as the day progresses.